Avatar.

[Jazzman]

Originally Posted by Alex

Why bother seeing a movie you've already decided you won't like?

Originally Posted by Me

The only way I'll see this film is in 3D, as that and its overall visuals are all that I'm interested in.

[mousepod]

After seeing Avatar, I joined the large group of movie fans who thought that the effects were brilliant but the story was lacking and derivative. Now, a couple of weeks later, I've rethought my position a bit, based on an unrelated request from my sister last week. Right before we moved to LA, I took some Disney/Ghibli animation DVDs and reburned them for my then two-year-old niece with all of the non-movie stuff removed, so she could just pop it into a DVD player and go straight to the flick. When we visited her in San Francisco last week, my sister asked me if I could burn a copy of the theatrical version of Star Wars for Ella, now four. It occurred to me that part of the reason that I loved Star Wars so much when it first came out was that it was an exciting sci-fi adventure with characters that I liked. For an eleven-year-old me, it didn't matter that the story was derivative or that there were shortcomings in the logic or production. Had I been a forty-something with a sophisticated knowledge of cinema, I would have been able to intellectually block my visceral enjoyment of the film. And that would have been a shame. I hope that my nieces and nephews (all 13 and younger) get a chance to see Avatar in its initial run. When they're in their thirties and Cameron produces a crappy movie set in the "Avatar Universe", they'll get all huffy about how he betrayed his original, unique vision. And I'll quietly smile.

[wolfy999]

Just purchased tickets for the Irvine Spectrum IMAX showing of this on Sunday afternoon....from everyone's input, I'm really looking forward to this.

[Alex]

Roll your eyes all you want, but the question remains unanswered. 3 hours of hating a movie is a lot of investment to see some pretty pictures.

Or to ask it a different way, if you're going to see it anyway, why bother pre-determining that you won't like it?

[Jazzman]

No, no, it's answered. Rather clearly too. Perhaps not satisfactorily to your fight-picking baiting, but it's answered.

After seeing it I'll post my own review. Enough for now though.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Jazzman

No, no, it's answered. Rather clearly too. Perhaps not satisfactorily to your fight-picking baiting, but it's answered.

But I asked the question, it's my question, wouldn't I be the one to know when it's been answered? And since I remain unclear on why you'd subject yourself to nearly three hours of offensive story simply to look at pretty pictures, it would appear that the curiosity behind my question remains unanswered. I was hoping for something like "I'll be wearing headphones playing the audio track from Season 4 of The Golden Girls and therefore will only be experiencing the pretty pictures." That would be an answer to the question. "I restate that which prompted the question" not so much. You're not very good at Q&A, perhaps The Learning Annex offers a class.

Besides, watching Avatar is now my Christmas tradition. It isn't very nice of you to poop on it like this. Baby Jesus weeps, and not just because he's a baby and that's what babies do. But because through him is found salvation and that's an awfully big burden for a baby to bear and it is only in knowing that I enjoy Avatar, unsullied by pre-emptive pooping that he is able to bear it. And you take that away from him? Now mankind can't be saved and god forsakes us. I hope you're happy with yourself mister, you've made a mockery of the Pope's entire life (except the Nazi youth stuff, that remains unsullied).

[Gn2Dlnd]

Irwin Allen wants you!

To sit in a movie theatre in the '70s.

[Tref]

Originally Posted by Gn2Dlnd

Irwin Allen wants you! To sit in a movie theatre in the '70s.

I'd say that's just the right temperature. Anything less and I need a jacket.

[alphabassettgrrl]

Saw this last night.

I found the continual foreground 3D and the 3D bugs distracting. Ok, show us you can do it in the beginning, but then STOP IT. Using the 3D as background and midground- brilliant. Yes, more of that, absolutely.

Visually: pretty. I liked the blue people (yes, I know you're supposed to. I like them anyway).

Plot: No real surprises except for the ending. I was pleased with the ending. I didn't expect they'd actually do it.

People: wanted to smack the crap out of Jake all the way up to when he went to choose his dragon. Even then, he didn't seem to "get" it and I despised him for it. I loved the communal stuff at the tree of souls. I loved the adoption of a new member, and how everybody formed a web of touch.

Overall- thank you for having a story. It's still kind of showing off, too much of the "look what we can do," but it's starting to integrate into the movie and be just a part of it instead of calling attention to the effects. I'm not a fan of how movies are going deeper and deeper into the showing-off of effects, big blockbuster costs, and it's just crazy, but then at the core, there's no story. Big explosions, 3D, big sets, astounding scenery, but then it doesn't say anything.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by alphabassettgrrl

People: wanted to smack the crap out of Jake all the way up to when he went to choose his dragon. Even then, he didn't seem to "get" it and I despised him for it. I loved the communal stuff at the tree of souls. I loved the adoption of a new member, and how everybody formed a web of touch.

Of course he didn't get it until the end, up until then it was just another person's religion. Interesting anthropoligically but not much more. It wasn't until that last night when he listened to ancestors as the tree (the same night they had sex -- or however Na'vi bond) that he knew it was actually true and not just mysticism.

Before that, the best he could do would be to simply respect the odd religious beliefs of the others.